


Shattered Glass

by Archangel_Beth



Category: In Nomine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 15:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11293308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth
Summary: Original Livejournal preamble, as of October 18th, 2003:Cythraul notes that it's AA that writes the stuff that freaks the living hell out of us....I mean, if people are going to ask...





	Shattered Glass

**Shattered Glass**

\---------------

Where is often less important than when. How is meaningless, and why... is because sometimes there can be no other path.

The two old men stopped, facing each other. One leaned on a silver-handled cane, his back slightly bent. The other stood straighter, smoking a cigarette, and looked rather like a movie actor who had once played him.

They simply looked at each other for a time, faces equally expressionless, but eyes narrowed with hate and longing that had nothing to do with the physical, and everything to do with magnets or mirrors. The bent one finally twitched a finger at the other, whose cigarette had dropped ash (that did not last to touch the ground). "That's a vile habit."

The other looked down at it, and flicked it away from him (into nothingness). "You're right. I suppose none of us is exempt from holding the seeds of our own fate within our souls." He brightened a little. "Or vice versa."

The bent man narrowed his eyes. "You dare," he began, hissing.

"You can't deny it," said the formerly-smoking one, quietly.

A wrinkled, age-twisted hand tightened upon the silver handle. But he did not (could not?) speak further.

And their eyes blazed more, reflections of the other within.

Eventually, one spoke. (and did it matter which?) "I suppose that events favor you now."

The other (does it really matter who?) replied, "Yes." And then, grudgingly, "My brother."

"My self." And they whispered it together, voices soft and hating what they longed for even as they longed for what they hated.

The bent one cast aside his cane (it vanished as the cigarette had), with a small flick of his hand.

As one, mirrored, they stepped forward -- and the bent one straightened even as the other stooped a bit. Age-wrinkled hands lifted to soft cheeks, feeling the hard bone beneath. Their eyes saw each other seeing themselves, and for a moment, the longing of mirrors overpowered the hate.

Mouths -- soft lips, hard bones unpadded -- met, hungry in ways that had nothing to do with sex and everything with desire. That which had been separated yearned to be one, and they pressed against each other as if it could be so.

But souls spoke, as spirits all but melted.

_*we have changed*_  
_*we can no longer be one*_

And the hate began to overwhelm the love of reflections, once again.

Their hands dropped, and they stepped forward, eyes fixed upon other goals. And each's body was as air to the other.

And they walked away, one with a cigarette cradled like a child in his fingers, the other with a silver-handled cane strangled in his hand.

And the shattered glass left behind them (and had it been there before? does it matter?) began to reseal itself, white scars marring the clarity.


End file.
